(Note: birth date given in original as "ca. 1752"; death date given as "Spring 1821 or 1822.") fur trader, judge, b. LaPrairie, near Montreal, Canada. Reaume participated in the Canadian fur and Indian trade for a time, but moved to Detroit after his business failed. During the American Revolutionary War he supported the British, but after being. captured by the American forces, he took an oath of neutrality, and about 1792 moved to Green Bay. There he participated in the fur trade briefly and then turned to farming. Best known for his long and almost legendary career as Green Bay justice of the peace, Reaume was appointed to this office by Governor William H. Harrison of Indiana Territory in 1803. In 1818 Governor Lewis Cass of Michigan Territory appointed him associate justice of the Brown County court, and Reaume held both offices until his death. Although Reaume's legal claim to office was sometimes questioned, his acceptance by the French Canadians in Green Bay is credited with making a civil commission unnecessary. Reaume's judgments were usually mild and nearly always unorthodox, but he was disliked by many persons, who described him as being pompous, arbitrary, and lazy. Reaume was one of the most colorful figures in early Wisconsin history-an American judge, dispensing justice according to French law and Indian custom while wearing a British uniform. Colls. State Hist. Soc. Wis., 1 (1855), 3 (1857), 19 (1910); J. Tasse, Les Canadiens de l'Ouest (2 vols., Montreal, 1878); WPA MS; C. Reaume Papers.

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The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Charles Reaume Papers for details.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]